Snowclones

From the Spotlight Online archives.

Formula is the new original. In our mediated age, it seems that we spend more time than ever before picking up and changing, or remixing, chunks of language. Or maybe we're just becoming more aware of formulas like
"X is the new black" or "we're going to X like we've never Xed before" that have been spun off in countless variations. Just replace the "X" with "*" and google the phrases. The variety seems endless!

Linguists call such formulaic phrases "snowclones." The term goes back to the popular concept: "If Eskimos have N names for snow, then X have N names for Y." The Economist, for example, wrote in 2003, "If Eskimos have dozens of words for snow, Germans have as many words for bureaucracy." Both statements are utter nonsense, but the formula makes the claim sound good. Language Log blogger Geoffrey Pullum originally developed the snowclone concept back in 2004, and a database is now being compiled by Erin Stevenson O'Connor.

Occasionally someone will track down the source of a snowclone. "Pink is the new black" was a fashion statement in the 1980s. But it actually originated way back in the 1960s as "pink is the navy blue of India", which is how fashion icon Diana Vreeland summarized the basic difference between the Indian and the Western colour schemes. The phrase then morphed into "X is the new black", a template used ever since to describe what is new and hot and essential in fashion and elsewhere.

Varying the stock phrase is good for a laugh. Last season, Obama was the new black. This season, being unemployed is. "Black" can be replaced, too. So it's "X is the new Y", and smart is the new sexy — at least the kind of instant smart that will fit on a T-shirt. So come join us: we're going to snowclone like we've never snowcloned before on the next page.

Anne Hodgson